I first met William Burroughs in a book, not his novel or his poems or his essays but a book on special effects about the making of the movie "Naked Lunch", the 1991 film adaptation of his novel with the same title, directed by David Cronenberg and starred and lead by Peter Weller.
The book is not about the postmodernist author but about props, images and photographs of giant bug creature called "Mugwump" and how special make-up and effects was done in a pre-production of a film. But images of the creature that appeared on the film was from Burroughs imagination or his "hallucinogenic images" being interpreted by the film's special effects and visual artist Chris Walas. That was all of the images that I associated with William Burroughs or of the film "Naked Lunch".
In multimedia world, "old-fashioned" forms refer to (or limited) words on a page, a photographs or painting on a canvas or a music from an instrument - a single media and one form of content (image or text) or audio. Multimedia as being defined is the combination of different content forms: text, audio, animation, video and the word "interactivity".
Meeting again William Burroughs, the poet, novelist, painter and word performer in the field of multimedia is like discovering how Burroughs discovered and experimented with words. And it gives a new meaning and dimension to the words by Burroughs and to Burroughs as a writer and multimedia artist. It was Burroughs who experimented with words and forms, from linear to non-linear, redefining the traditional beginning, middle and end format of presenting words and its story... if there is.
William Burroughs: A Man Who Has Nothing to Do and yet Affected Popular Culture As Well as Literature.
"He has nothing to do", was his reply when asked why he writes. He started to write when he was 35 years old - to put down in a more or less journalistic style, something about his experiences with addiction and addicts. For Burroughs, love can result to addiction and not only limited to drugs and alcohol. There can also be an addiction to politics, family or religion, or to an activity like sports. His friends said that drug taking is somehow a good companion for his writings: "it helps him to consume huge dose of images."
"He has nothing to do", he says. But look at his works: more than 18 novels, 7 short story collections, 4 essay collections, including 6 non-fiction works. Writes and appeared in TV and movie. Collaborated on projects and recordings with different musical performers. Appeared in the cover of Beatles' "Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band" and influence and inspired several 60's and 70's music groups and bands, naming their groups from his literary works and novels. Band names such as: Steely Dan, The Mugwumps, Soft Machine, Dead Fingers Talk and Nova Express to name a few was inspired by his novels. A man with many interest and so varied and yet he has nothing to do.
He discovered the cut-up in 1959 in Paris through his artist friend Brion Gysin, a painter.The cut-up is a mechanical method of juxtaposition in which Burroughs literally cuts up passages of prose by himself and other writers and then paste them back together at random. Cut-up is a mixed media experiment (combining images from TV, movies, visual montage of text and images, and actual footage of events), like technique used by mixed media visual artist.
The irony of it all, where the word "multimedia" is concerned, Burroughs didn't use computers but an old-fashioned scissors to make a new content and form from an existing materials. Man, like William Burroughs, and multimedia technology (modern or not) and man's own imagination help add a new dimension to text and words and redefining its meaning. Words emerge as a new form of content of art.
Interactivity Between the Artist and The Medium
The irony of it all, where the word "multimedia" is concerned, Burroughs didn't use computers but an old-fashioned scissors to make a new content and form from an existing materials. Man, like William Burroughs, and multimedia technology (modern or not) and man's own imagination help add a new dimension to text and words and redefining its meaning. Words emerge as a new form of content of art.
Interactivity Between the Artist and The Medium
For Burroughs, cut-ups can composed clear classical prose, cutting and rearranging a page of written words introduces a new dimension into writing enabling the writer to turn images in cinematic variation and shifts, images to sound sight to sound to kinesthetic.
Burroughs also stated that best artworks are sometimes by accidents.
As in Burroughs own words:
“Cut the word lines and you will hear their voices. Cut- ups often come through as code messages with special meaning for the cutter. Cut Rimbaud's words and you are assured of good poetry at least if not personal appearance”.
Words and Image Interaction: From Burroughs to Lewis
From "Reading Contemporary Picturebooks’ by David Lewis, he explores how words and pictures interact with each other. The words interact with images in the form of symmetry, enhancement, counterpoint and contradiction.
From "Reading Contemporary Picturebooks’ by David Lewis, he explores how words and pictures interact with each other. The words interact with images in the form of symmetry, enhancement, counterpoint and contradiction.
SYMMETRY, according to Lewis, is when words and image come as close as possible to conveying the same information or tell the same story. ENHANCEMENT is words and image work together to enhance the emotional message of the picture with words. When images and text, according to the author, “provide different kinds of information that the reader must make some effort to reconcile and intergrate”, then we can call that as COUNTERPOINT. And lastly, CONTRADICTION in text-image relationship occurs when the words and pictures “seem to be saying entirely different things”.
I tried to integrate what Burroughs and Lewis treatment on words and image, mixing them both (and also the text and image) and called mine as TYPHOTOGRAPHY (or Letra-to in Filipino) - playing with words and images. Well, my words may not be poetic and words and images may not interacts with each other, but I might be going in that direction.
Example of my works, more on symmetry and enhancement (note: some words are in Filipino):
I tried to integrate what Burroughs and Lewis treatment on words and image, mixing them both (and also the text and image) and called mine as TYPHOTOGRAPHY (or Letra-to in Filipino) - playing with words and images. Well, my words may not be poetic and words and images may not interacts with each other, but I might be going in that direction.
Example of my works, more on symmetry and enhancement (note: some words are in Filipino):
"Sariwang hangin ba? Humingi ka sa dahon": Fresh air? Ask from the leaves
"Kakambal ng Kalikasan ang Tao": Nature and Man are Twins
"Sarap Kayang Kumain sa Dahon ng Saging": Eating is more Appetizing when food is served on a banana leaf
"Padaususan: Gawing Palaruan ang Kalikasan"- Slides: Convert Nature as Playground
Sources and links:
William Burroughs Sample Works:
One example of how Burroughs employ the cut-up technique is “Last Words of Hassan Sabbah”
Links:
And an Audio file of the same works:
For the documentary on his Cut-up:
More work on Cut-Up film
Towers Open Fire: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAxUWfe_PJY
Graphic Dimensions:
https://graphicdimensions.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/exploring-text-image-relationship/
Graphic Dimensions:
https://graphicdimensions.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/exploring-text-image-relationship/
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